Business Planning Consulting

Strategic Planning Consulting   

Every company has its own reason to do strategic planning. The first thing we do is help you determine what your company hopes to get out of the effort that is involved, and which end products will be most useful. We never create plans that are just window dressing to fill a corporate requirement. Planning is hard work for the management teams involved, and the end product must be designed to accomplish certain objectives. These objectives often include:

• A plan that will be used as a blueprint to actually help leaders run the company
• A plan to externally articulate a company's value proposition, vision, strategy, and prospects to secure financing, or other considerations
• Credibility among owners, shareholders, and boards that the firm has a cohesive and compelling strategy, with a clear vision for the future and an executable plan in place
• A clear sense of priorities, focus and energy among the management team
• A line of sight that all employees can relate to as they attempt to reconcile their duties with the vision and strategy of the firm
• Understanding, and agreement among the management team about where the company is going and how it will get there

Once the objectives are understood, we will help you identify who is essential to the process, and how to get them involved in an appropriate manner. Strategic planning done well is as much about experiential change among the participants as it is about creating plans that will actually improve the organization. It is usually our goal to move the plans, process, and participants ahead, in parallel, over the course of several quarters rather than trying to create a grand strategy in one quarter.

From that point, we will employ individual interviews, surveys, and facilitated group sessions to create the plans themselves.

The resulting plans are both visionary and practical, and not only paint a picture of the desired future state of the company, but also provide a roadmap to get there.